Archive for the ‘chris tillman’ tag

The Nats don’t have to worry about who wins the Wild Card this year, and the Cubs will get a weakened opponent either way. So lets preview the Wild Card match-ups mostly from a SP stand point and make some knee-jerk predictions.

These two AL East foes face off for the 20th and last time this year: Toronto won the season series 10-9 but badly out scored Baltimore while doing it. Tillman is hittable; the fact that the Orioles are in the playoffs at all with their rotation is a miracle. Tillman faced Toronto four times; in 22 1/3 innings he gave up 10 earned runs, and he controlled them in the game’s final season. Stroman also faced his potential opponent four times this year and his numbers are not nearly as good; he got lit up for 7 runs in mid-June, and his start against Toronto last weekend was anything but dominant (4 runs on 9 hits in 7 innings). The “intangibles” factor doesn’t bode well for Toronto; word has it their clubhouse has lost its focus and professionalism and they may spin out of control at the worst time. If these teams played 10 times they go 5-5, but I give Baltimore the edge here.

Prediction: Baltimore wins a game that gets away from Toronto to earn a match up with Texas.

Does it get any better than this in terms of a pitching match-up? The Mets took the season Series 4-3 with a +4 run differential; very even. Despite that, I like the Mets in this one; they’ve been hot (not that that matters) and the Giants limped into the playoffs. Bumgarner has two starts against the Mets this year: in New York he shut them down early, but then in SF later on he got hit. Snydergaard has also faced SF twice this year; in New York in early May he too got lit up by the Giants, but then allowed just 2 hits in 8 innings against them in August in SF. Plus, thanks to an early clinch the Mets didn’t have to use Snydergaard in their weekend series, so he’ll have more than a week’s rest heading into the game .. which is good because he’s thrown a ton of innings and his splits with a large amount of rest are crazy good; 1.92 ERA.

Had I published in time, I likely would have gotten at least one of the WC games wrong too (I liked Bumgarner but thought Francisco Liriano could revert to his dominant 2013 post season form).

Four predictions, four incorrect, mostly wildly so. Damn. So much for the “pitching wins in the postseason” narrative.

Now what? Of course! Post another prediction piece

In the NL; the two top teams lost in the divisional series, leaving the weakest divisional champ going against the wild card, both with two off-days to re-set their rotations. In the AL; two surprising sweeps and a huge gap between games lets both teams re-set their rotations too. I’m guessing at the rotation order, but it should go as follows:

NL:

Game 1: SF@Stl: Jake Peavy vs Adam Wainwright

Game 2: SF@Stl: Madison Bumgarner vs Lance Lynn

Game 3: Stl@SF: John Lackey vs Tim Hudson

Game 4: Stl@SF: Shelby Miller vs Ryan Vogelsong

Game 5: Stl@SF: Wainwright-Peavy (if necessary)

Game 6: SF@Stl: Bumgarner-Lynn (if necessary)

Game 7: SF@Stl: Lackey-Hudson (if necessary)

SF barely hit against Washington’s starters but still squeaked out 3 games from 4. St. Louis on the other hand hits the ball a ton and should pound SF’s lesser starters. I like a split in Stl thanks to Bumgarner, then Stl taking two of three in ATT, and SF liking their chances throwing their ace in game 6. But who the heck knows what is going to happen; Wainwright gave up 11 hits in his last outing. St. Louis in 7.

I, and every other national pundit, continue to be underwhelmed by Baltimore’s pitching staff. But they get the job done: Norris was un-hittable against Detroit, and Tillman pitched good enough to win. Is KC on a mission to save Dayton Moore’s job? It sure seems so. They couldn’t surpass Detroit in the regular season but swept the best team in baseball in the ALDS. But meanwhile, Baltimore *hits* the ball. I think Baltimore could win both games at home to start and then two of three in KC.

Last year I went nearly game-by-game, night-by-night with predictions and analysis of the playoffs. Can’t do that this year, but I am doing some quickie starter match-up analysis to do some Divisional Series match-up predictions. The current list of probables is mostly guess work, with the help of MLB.com’s probable pitcher page. Also using depth charts to make guesses on the probables.

Yes, it seems like we’re going to see Strasburg & Zimmermann at home instead of Stras-Gio.

Looking at the match-ups, its easy to say “advantage Washington.” Strasburg has been hot. Zimmermann has been even more hot. We then throw the underrated Fister against Giant’s best starter, then come back with Gio in game 4 on the road, where he’s going against the erratic Vogelsong. Hudson has had the Nat’s number for years, but he’s been a train wreck in the 2nd half of 2014. Peavy has been a bulldog for San Francisco since the trade, but was nearly a 5.00 ERA in the AL.

I’m predicting Washingtonsweeps the first two at home, loses Bumgarner’s start, then beats SF in game 4 to wrap up the series 3-1.

St. Louis-Los Angeles Dodgers

Game 1: Stl@LAD: Adam Wainwright vs Clayton Kershaw

Game 2: Stl@LAD: Lance Lynn vs Zack Greinke

Game 3: LAD@Stl: Hyun-Jin Ryu vs John Lackey

Game 4: LAD@Stl: Dan Haren vs Shelby Miller (if necessary)

Game 5: Stl@LAD: Wainwright v Kershaw again (if necessary)

St. Louis has already announced that Michael Wacha is *not* in the post-season rotation, which is a huge blow for their chances to out-last the Dodgers. The game 1 match-up might be the pitching matchup of the post-season, with perennial Cy Young candidate Wainwright going against the likely MVP in Kershaw. Lynn has gone from being barely a 5th starter to being the #2 guy on St. Louis’ staff, but I don’t know if he’s got enough to get St. Louis the split against Greinke. Missing Wacha means that St. Louis will have to depend on both Lackey and Miller. Long odds there.

This series might end up being a sweep frankly; I think LA has the distinct pitching advantage here. And not having Wacha’s dominance from previous post seasons makes it tough. Dodgers in a sweep or 3-1 if the Cards can get to either Greinke or Ryu.

Detroit-Baltimore

Game 1: Det@Balt: Max Scherzer vs Chris Tillman

Game 2: Det@Balt: Justin Verlander vs Wei-Yin Chen

Game 3: Balt@Det: Bud Norris vs David Price

Game 4: Balt@Det: Miguel Gonzalez vs Rick Porcello (if necessary)

Game 5: Det@Balt: Tillman-Scherzer (if necessary)

The 96-win Orioles get rewarded with having to face three Cy Young winners in the first three games. Their rotation mates are underrated (3rd best ERA in the 2nd half) but certainly not in the same class as what Detroit puts up there. Baltimore’s best case is to get a split at home, then a split away and get to the 5th game. I don’t see it: I think this series hinges on whether Verlander is Cy Young-Verlander or inexplicably-bad-lately Verlander. I’m guessing the former; Detroit wins this series in a sweep or perhaps 3-1.

Kansas City-Los Angeles Angels

Game 1: KC@LAA: Jason Vargas vs Jered Weaver

Game 2: KC@LAA: Yordano Ventura vs Matt Shoemaker

Game 3: LAA@KC: C.J. Wilson vs James Shields

Game 4: LAA@KC: Weaver vs Jeremy Guthrie (if necessary)

Game 5: KC@LAA: Shoemaker v Vargas (if necessary)

The Angels are struggling into the playoffs and have announced they’re going with a 3-man rotation. Weaver’s history of going on 3 days rest is spotty; one decent start and one blow-out. Meanwhile the Royals burned their #1 guy in the WC game AND threw Ventura enough to have people question Ned Yost‘s sanity (even moreso than they already were with his multiple bunting). But the Angels hit, and the Royals’ guys won’t be able to completely put them at odds.

I think the 3-man rotation will backfire, and whether the Royals throw Guthrie or Danny Duffy in game 4 won’t make a difference; they’ll hit Weaver at home and push this to a 5th game, where everybody will be on deck. Angels in 5.

Lets see if these probable pitchers hold up to guesses made on 10/1/14.

Will the Nats be staring down Kershaw in the playoffs? Photo via wiki.

Here we are. After a crazy trade deadline in July, and an August and September that featured the division leaders (in most cases) solidifying their positions and extending their leads, the playoffs are upon us.

Lets take a look at the rotations of the playoff teams (despite the fact that the four Wild Card teams are just one-man pitching staffs until they win the play-in game). Who lines up best? For each team i’ve tried to line the pitchers up one through five, with the 5th guy being the one headed to the bullpen.

Just look at what the Dodgers have tried to do to keep their rotation afloat in terms of player acquisition over the past couple of years. I’d like to have their budget. They will have no less than eleven capable, MLB-experienced starters once they’re all healthy. Yes Kershaw is unbeatable, but as pointed out earlier this year, they are basically a .500 team otherwise. Their 4th and 5th starters have been below replacement for much of the past month but they’re getting back Ryu right in time for the playoffs. St. Louis’ rotation looks just as strong as it has been for the past few years; Wainwright quietly has 20 wins and a 2.38 ERA on the season. Lynn has been great. Only Miller has struggled but still has a league-average ERA+.

It is hard not to look at the Nationals’ rotation and claim they’re the deepest one-through-four, despite Gonzalez’s struggles. I’d take our #4 (Fister) over anyone else’s #4, I think our #3 matches up just as favorably to anyone els’es #3, and Strasburg has a 1.34 ERA in September as the #1.

NL Wild Card:

Pittsburgh: Liriano, Cole, Locke, Volquez, Worley (Morton dinged up late Sept, made way for Cole).

San Francisco: Bumgarner, Hudson, Petit, Vogelsong, Peavy(Lincecum to bullpen for Petit, Cain out all year)

The NL WC pitching match-up will be Bumgarner-Liriano. Both teams manipulated their rotations at season’s end to preserve their aces for the coin-flip game. We’ll do a separate prediction piece.

The Braves fell so far, so badly in September that they were nearly surpassed by the lowly NY Mets for 2nd place in the NL East. That’s crazy. But they still remain here as an also-ran because they were in the wild card race until mid-September. I still think it is crazy what they were able to accomplish given the starting pitcher injuries they suffered in spring training and don’t quite understand why Frank Wren was fired. If you want to fire him for his crummy FA contracts so be it; but the man engineered a team that made the playoffs three of the past five years. Harsh treatment if you ask me. Insider comments seem to think that Wren lost an internal power-struggle involving Fredi Gonzalez.

It is hard to look at these rotations and comprehend where these teams currently stand:

How is Baltimore leading the AL East by 12 games? None of these guys are a league-wide “Ace.”

How is Detroit not pulling away from the AL Central with this collection of arms? Of course, you could ask this question of Detroit over and again the past few years; with a stacked lineup and stacked rotation they have just barely won their (usually) weak division year after year.

How does Los Angeles have the best record in the majors with a non-drafted FA and a waiver claim in their Sept rotation? Would you favor this rotation over Detroit’s?

I guess it doesn’t matter; these teams have bashed their way to their titles and should continue to hit in the post-season. Apparently the O’s aren’t going to go with Gausman in their playoff rotation despite his good seasonal numbers. It may be a case of veteran manager going with the veterans, as Gausman’s numbers are pretty much in line with most of the rest of the Baltimore rotation. The injury to Richards really hurts the Angels: Weaver may be close to an Ace but Wilson showed he is hittable in the post-season and lord knows what will happen when LA has to throw their #3 and #4 choices.

AL Wild Cards:

Kansas City: Shields, Duffy, Ventura, Guthrie, Vargas

Oakland: Grey, Samardzija, Lester, Hammel, Kazmir

AL Wild Card looks like a knock-out match-up of Shields and Lester; the A’s burned Grey yesterday to get the win that put them in the playoffs. Oakland has to be kicking themselves; how did they go from (easily) the best team in the majors for the first half to struggling to hang onto the WC spot? On paper replacing 3/5ths of the rotation (out with Chavez, Milone, Pomeranz and Straily, in with Samardzija, Lester and Hammel) sounded like a great idea … but to me the team’s chemistry was clearly un-balanced. At least they held on to the spot and avoiding a one-game play-in against Felix Hernandez.

AL Also-Rans:

Seattle: Hernandez, Walker, Iwakuma, Paxton, Young (Elias out for year)

New York: McCarthy, Greene, Kuroda, Capuano, Pineda (with Tanakafinally coming back at season’s end. Nova and Sabathia gone all year with injuries).

All Seattle needed to do was *get* to the wild card game … and they’d have great odds of advancing behind ace Hernandez. But struggled to the finish line. Meanwhile Cleveland and New York would have been mentioned here a week ago, but both squads just ran out of time to make comebacks. I’ll give NY credit: they played 7 games better than their pythagorean record with huge chunks of their rotation gone for the season and depending on guys who’s names I had to look up.

This year’s MLB trade deadline was crazy. Never before have so many big-time names moved teams. And certainly I cannot remember so many big-time pitchers relocating mid-season as well.

Lets look at the playoff contender rotations as they stand right now, with Trade deadline acquisitions highlighted in blue.

NL

Washington: Strasburg, Gonzalez, Zimmerman, Fister, Roark

Atlanta: Teheran, Minor, Santana, Harang, Wood

Milwaukee: Lohse, Garza, Gallardo, Peralta, Nelson

Cincinnati: Cueto, Latos, Bailey, Leake, Simon

St. Louis: Wainwright, Masterson, Lackey, Lynn, Miller

Pittsburgh: Liriano, Morton, Locke, Volquez, Worley

Los Angeles: Kershaw, Greinke, Ryu, Beckett, Haren

San Francisco: Bumgarner, Hudson, Lincecum, Vogelsong, Peavy

St. Louis clearly did the most in the NL, acquiring two mid-rotation guys to help cover for the injured Michael Wacha and Jaime Garcia, but it is hard to look at their rotation and say they’d have the advantage over some of their potential playoff rivals. San Francisco lost its ace (thought he hasn’t pitched like an Ace since signing his new deal) Matt Cain, and his replacement was not inspiring confidence (Yusmiero Petit), so they added former Cy Young winner Peavy (who is pitching better than his 1-11 W/L record .. but not a lot better). Otherwise the NL playoff contenders mostly stood pat. There was some small surprise that the free-spending Dodgers wouldn’t try to improve upon the suddenly underperforming Josh Beckett and/or the “fool-me-once” Dan Haren. They’ll struggle to get through the #3 and #4 starts of their planned playoff rotation to get back to their co-aces Kershaw and Greinke (who was good but not shut-down in last year’s playoffs). The home-town Nats may find themselves with an uncomfortable decision to make if they make the playoffs; which starter to send to the pen? Roark is the least renound and the least tenured … but he has clearly been more effective than other rotation members.

It continues to amaze that the Braves are competing, given the losses they’ve faced in their rotation. They are missing (arguably) their planned #2, #3 and #5 starters in Kris Medlen, Brandon Beachy and Gavin Floyd but are getting by thanks to two mid-spring acquisitions (Santana and Harang) and the surprise performances of youngsters Wood and David Hale (who didn’t merit his demotion to the bullpen).

AL

Baltimore: Tillman, Norris, Chen, Gonzalez, Gausman

Toronto: Buehrle, Dickey, Happ, Strohman, Hutchinson

New York: Kuroda, Phelps, Capuano, Greene, McCarthy

Detroit: Scherzer, Verlander, Sanchez, Price, Porcello

Kansas City: Shields, Duffy, Ventura, Guthrie, Vargas

Oakland: Grey, Samardzija, Lester, Hammel, Kazmir

Los Angeles: Weaver, Wilson, Richards, Shoemaker, Santiago

Seattle: Hernandez, Iwakuma, Paxton, Elias, Young

I didn’t include fringe playoff contenders such as Cleveland or Tampa Bay here; both of those rotations were purged and weakened, and their odds of catching one of these listed WC contendors is long. Oakland completely re-made their rotation here, attempting to keep up with Detroit, who now features the last three AL Cy Young winners to go along with Sanchez (who finished 4th last year in a season where he led the league in both ERA and FIP). That’s quite a lineup. Meanwhile Seattle likely finishes 10 games back of the Angels and could end up facing them in the coin-flip wild-card game … and could end up throwing the best pitcher in the AL at them (which has been noted as a significant down-side to the 2nd wild-card matchup; who wants to see a team lose out to a divisional rival that they bested by so many games in a play-in game?).

New York is the “Atlanta” of the AL this year; they currently have four planned rotation members on the D/L and (likely) out for the year (CC Sabathia, Ivan Nova, Michael Pineda and Masahiro Tanaka). Their 4th and 5th starters were a 14th and 15th round pick respectively. They’ve been outscored by nearly 30 runs on the year yet somehow have a winning record. It seems like just a matter of time before their luck runs out and they settle back below .500.

Who would you rather go to war with, Detroit or Oakland’s rotation? Probably Detroit’s rotation, given its depth one to four. But the ALCS could be one heck of a series.

CC Sabathia continues to be the active leader in Opening Day starts. Photo via wiki/flickr.

Some of my favorite trivia questions revolves around Opening Day Starters. With another Opening Day in the books, here’s some useless trivia related to Opening Day starters. I’ve updated my Opening Day Starters spreadsheet to Google Docs and created a link in the “Nationals Arm Race creation” section along the right. Fyi, on a team-by-team basis you can query Baseball-Reference.com for the opening day lineups (here’s the Washington/Montreal franchise’ opening day lineup history as an example).

Current Active Leaders in Opening Day Starts

11

CC Sabathia

9

Mark Buehrle

7

Felix Hernandez

7

Justin Verlander

6

Bartolo Colon

6

Tim Hudson

6

Jered Weaver

6

James Shields

5

Josh Beckett

5

Yovanni Gallardo

4

Jake Peavy

4

Tim Lincecum

4

Clayton Kershaw

4

Jon Lester

3

Strasburg, Cueto, Wainwright, Price, Masterson, Nolasco

2

Lee, Samardzija, Liriano, Dickey, Sale, Feldman

Those players bolded in the list above had 2014 opening day starts and added to their totals. (Note; there’s plenty of guys out there with 2 or 3 opening day starts but who did not extend their count in 2014; they are not included here). With the retirement of Roy Halladay, CC Sabathia extends his active lead in this category. Mark Buehrle has given over the reigns of opening day starter possibly for good, based on his standing in the Toronto rotation. Meanwhile the next closest competitors (Justin Vernalder and Felix Hernandez) could eventually supplant Sabathia, especially if he continues to struggle and gets replaced as the Yankees’ ace.

Felix Hernandez and Justin Verlander continue to be the best bets to broach the all-time records (see below) based on their ages, their current counts and their new long-term contracts.

Answers to other Opening Day start trivia:

Current Active Leader in consecutive Opening Day Starts: Sabathia with 9 consecutive, split among two teams. Second is Verlander with 7 straight, albeit all with the same team. There was talk about how his Cy Young-winning rotation mate Max Scherzer should have gotten the ball this year, given Verlander’s 2013 struggles.

Most ever Opening Day Starts all-time: Tom Seaver with 16 in his career.

Most ever Consecutive Opening Day Starts: Hall of Fame lightning rod Jack Morris, who made 14 straight such starts.

Number of first-time opening day starters in 2014: Ten (10) guys got the ball on opening day for the first time, slightly down from last year’s 13. Injuries gave some pitchers the ball on opening day over other expected rotation mates (this is definitely the case with the likes of Julio Teheran, Tanner Scheppers, Sonny Gray, Dillon Gee, Jorge De La Rosa), and its probably the case that others got the ball on opening day thanks to their own personal ascention to the “lead-dog” spot on their teams (Jose Fernandez, Madison Bumgarner). The other three newbies (Andrew Cashner, Wade Miley, and Chris Tillman) probably fall somewhere inbetween these categories.

Who seems most likely to break Seaver or Morris’ Records at this point? Still Sabathia, who already has 11 opening day starts (and 9 straight), is the #1 in New York, is only 32 and still has four years on his current deal. However, he took a big step backwards in 2013 performance-wise, and the Yankees spent a ton of money on Masahiro Tanaka, and there could be a passing of the torch if Tanaka blows it out in 2014. Meanwhile Hernandez already has 7 opening day starts, just signed a deal that takes him through 2019 with a relatively easy option for 2020. That’s many more seasons under contract and he’d only be 34 years of age by its end. He could be the standard holder if he stays healthy and continues to pitch like an ace.

Most Inconsisent team using Opening Day Pitchers: Oakland. They’ve used 9 different opening day starters in the last 9 seasons, and that’s likely to continue since both the candidates for this year had injuries that forced them to go to a rookie for 2014. Pittsburgh is right behind them; they have used 7 different opening day starters in the last 7 seasons, and 13 different starters in the last 15 seasons. The Nats have at some point employed no less than three former Pittsburgh opening day starters: Ron Villone, Oliver Perez and Zach Duke. Colorado, Baltimore and Minnesota have also struggled for most of the past decade to find a dominant, reliable “Ace” and constantly cycle through new opening day starters, and once again each is using a different guy in 2014.

Last year, with my excitement over Washington’s Dan Haren signing and my supposition that Washington had the best rotation in the game, I ranked all 30 team’s rotations ahead of the 2013 season. Then, after the season was done, I revisited these pre-season rankings with a post-mortem to see how close (or, more appropriately, how far off) my rankings turned out to be.

Here’s the 2014 version of this same post: Pre-season rankings of the MLB’s rotations; 1 through 30. Warning; this is another huge post. I guess I’m just verbose. At this point midway through Spring Training there’s just a couple of possible FAs left that could have altered these rankings (Ervin Santana being the important name unsigned right now), so I thought it was time to publish.

The top teams are easy to guess; once you get into the 20s, it becomes pretty difficult to distinguish between these teams. Nonetheless, here we go (I heavily depended on baseball-reference.com and mlbdepthcharts.com for this post, along with ESPN’s transaction list per team and Baseball Prospectus’ injury reports for individual players).

Scherzer’s dominant Cy Young season brings the Tigers to the top. Photo AP Photo/Paul Sancya

In January, after most of marquee FA signings had shaken out, I ranked the 2013 rotations of teams 1-30. I was excited about the Nats rotation, speculated more than once that we had the best rotation in the league, and wanted to make a case for it by stacking up the teams 1-30.

I thought it’d be an interesting exercise to revisit my rankings now that the season is over with a hindsight view, doing some post-mortem analysis and tacking on some advanced metrics to try to quantify who really performed the best this season. For advanced metrics I’m leaning heavily on Fangraphs team starter stats page, whose Dashboard view quickly gives the team ERA, FIP, xFIP, WAR, SIERA, K/9 and other key stats that I’ll use in this posting.

(#2 pre-season) Detroit: Verlander, Fister, Sanchez, Scherzer, Porcello (with Alvarez providing some cover). Scherzer likely wins the Cy Young. Three guys with 200+ strikeouts. The league leader in ERA. And we havn’t even mentioned Justin Verlander yet. A team starting pitching fWAR of 25.3, which dwarfed the next closest competitor. There’s no question; we knew Detroit’s rotation was going to be good, but not this good. Here’s a scary fact; their rotation BABIP was .307, so in reality this group should have done even better than they actually did. Detroit’s rotation was *easily* the best rotation in the league and all 6 of these guys return for 2014.

(#3 Preseason): Los Angeles Dodgers: Kershaw, Greinke, Ryu, Nolasco, and Capuano (with Fife, Beckett, Lilly, Billingsley and a few others helping out); The 1-2 punch of Kershaw (the NL’s clear Cy Young favorite) and Greinke (who quietly went 15-4) was augmented by the stand-out rookie performance of Ryu, the surprisingly good half-season worth of starts from Nolasco, and then the all-hands-on deck approach for the rest of the starts. This team used 11 different starters on the year thanks to injury and ineffectiveness, but still posted the 2nd best team FIP and 5th best fWAR in the league.

(#8 pre-season): St. Louis: Wainwright, Lynn, Miller, Wacha and Kelly (with Garcia, Westbrook, and a few others pitching in). Team leader Chris Carpenter missed the whole season and this team still was one of the best rotations in the league. Westbrook missed time, Garcia only gave them 9 starts. That’s the team’s planned #1, #3 and #4 starters. What happened? They call up Miller and he’s fantastic. They call up Wacha and he nearly pitches back to back no-hitters at the end of the season. They give Kelly a starting nod out of the bullpen and he delivers with a better ERA+ than any of them from the #5 spot. St. Louis remains the bearer-standard of pitching development (along with Tampa and Oakland to an extent) in the game.

(#22 pre-season): Pittsburgh: Liriano, Burnett, Locke, Cole, Morton (with Rodriguez and a slew of call-ups helping out). How did this team, which I thought was so low pre-season, turn out to have the 4th best starter FIP in the game? Francisco Liriano had a renessaince season, Burnett continued to make Yankees fans shake their heads, and their top 6 starters (by number of starts) all maintained sub 4.00 ERAs. Gerrit Cole has turned out to be the real deal and will be a force in this league.

(#1 pre-season) Washington: Strasburg, Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Haren, Detwiler with Jordan, Roark and other starts thrown to Karns and Ohlendorf). Despite Haren’s continued attempts to sabotage this rotation’s mojo, they still finished 3rd in xFIP and 5th in FIP. Haren’s 11-19 team record and substandard ERA/FIP values drug this group down, but there wasn’t much further up they could have gone on this list. If you had replaced Haren with a full season of Jordan’s production, maybe this team jumps up a little bit, but the teams above them are tough to beat.

(#11 pre-season) Atlanta: Hudson, Medlen, Minor, Teheranand Maholm, (with rookie Alex Wood contributing towards the end of the season). Brandon Beachy only gave them 5 starts; had he replaced Maholm this rotation could have done better. Hudson went down with an awful looking injury but was ably covered for by Wood. They head into 2014 with a relatively formidable and cheap potential rotation of Medlen, Minor, Teheran, Beachy and Wood, assuming they don’t resign Hudson. How did they over-perform? Teheran finally figured it out, Maholm was more than servicable the first couple months, Wood was great and came out of nowhere.

(#26 pre-season) Cleveland: Jimenez, Masterson, McAllister, Kluber, Kazmir. Too high for this group? 7th in rotation fWAR, 8th in FIP, and 6th in xFIP. This group, which I thought was going to be among the worst in the league, turned out to be one of the best. Jimenez and Masterson both had rebound years with a ton of Ks, and the rest of this crew pitches well enough to remain around league average. They were 2nd best in the league in K/9. You can make the argument that they benefitted from the weakened AL Central, but they still made the playoffs with a relative rag-tag bunch.

(#9 pre-season) Cincinnati: Cueto, Latos, Bailey, Arroyo, Leake (with Tony Cingrani). Cueto was good … but he was never healthy, hitting the D/L three separate times. Luckily Cingrani came up from setting strikeout records in AAA and kept mowing them down in the majors. Latos was dominant, Leake took a step forward, and Bailey/Arroyo gave what they normally do. If anything you would have thought this group would have been better. 6th in Wins, 7th in xFIP, 9th in FIP. Next year Arroyo leaves, Cingrani gets 32 starts, Cueto stays healthy (cross your fingers, cross your fingers, cross your fingers) and this team is dominant again despite their FA hitting losses.

(#25 pre-season) New York Mets: Harvey, Wheeler, Niese, Gee, Hefner and a bunch of effective call-ups turned the Mets into a halfway-decent rotation all in all. 7th in xFIP, 11th in FIP. Most of this is on the backs of Matt Harvey, who pitched like the second coming of Walter Johnson for most of the season. Wheeler was more than effective, and rotation workhorses Niese and Gee may not be sexy names, but they were hovering right around the 100 ERA+ mark all year. One superstar plus 4 league average guys was good enough for the 9th best rotation.

(#12 pre-season) Texas: Darvish, Holland, Ogando, Perez, Garza at the end. Texas’ fWAR was the 2nd best in the league … but their accompanying stats drag them down this far. Despite having four starters with ERA+s ranging from 114 to Darvish’ 145, the 34 starts given to Tepesch and Grimm drag this rotation down. Ogando couldn’t stay healthy and Perez only gave them 20 starts. Garza was mostly a bust. And presumed #2 starter Matt Harrison gave them just 2 starts. But look out for this group in 2014; Darvish, a healthy Harrison, and Holland all locked up long term, Ogando in his first arbitration year, and Perez is just 22. That’s a formidable group if they can stay on the field together.

(pre-season #6) Tampa Bay: Price, Moore, Hellickson, Cobb, Archer and Roberto Hernandez. Jeff Niemann didn’t give them a 2013 start, but no matter, the Tampa Bay gravy train of power pitchers kept on producing. Cobb was unhittable, Archer was effective and Moore regained his 2011 playoff mojo to finish 17-4 on the year. An odd regression from Price, which was fixed by a quick D/L trip, and a complete collapse of Hellickson drug down this rotation from where it should have been. They still finished 12th in FIP and xFIP for the year.

(pre-season #21) Seattle: Hernandez, Iwakuma, Saunders, Harang, Maurer, and Ramirez.Seattle featured two excellent, ace-leve performers and a bunch of guys who pitched worse than Dan Haren all year. But combined together and you have about the 12th best rotation, believe it or not.

(pre-season #7) Philadelphia: Halladay, Hamels, Lee, Kendrick, Lannan (with Cloyd and Pettibone as backups). The phillies were 13th in xFIP, 10th in FIP on the year and regressed slightly thanks to the significant demise to their #1 guy Halladay. Lee pitched like his typical Ace but Hamels self-destructed as well. The strength of one excellent starter makes this a mid-ranked rotation. Had Halladay and Hamels pitched like expected, they’d have finished closer to my pre-season ranking.

(pre-season #17) Boston: Lester, Buchholz, Dempster, Lackey,Doubront, and Peavy: Boston got a surprise bounce back season out of Lackey, a fantastic if oft-injured performance from Buchholz, a mid-season trade for the effective Peavy. Why aren’t they higher? Because their home stadium contributes to their high ERAs in general. Despite being 3rd in rotation fWAR and 4th in wins, this group was 17th in FIP and 18th in xFIP. Perhaps you could argue they belong a couple places higher, but everyone knows its Boston’s offense that is driving their success this year.

(pre-season #16) New York Yankees: Sabathia, Kuroda, Pettitte, Nova, Hughes/Phelps. Hughes and Phelps pitched as predictably bad as you would have expected … but Sabathia’s downturn was unexpected. Are his years of being a workhorse catching up to him? The rotation was buoyed by unexpectedly good seasons from Nova and Kuroda. Pettitte’s swang song was pretty great, considering his age. Enough for them to slightly beat expectations, but the signs of trouble are here for this rotation in the future. Pettitee retired, Kuroda a FA, Hughes a FA, a lost season for prospect Michael Pineda and other Yankees prospects stalled. Are we in for a dark period in the Bronx?

(pre-season #29) Miami: Fernandez, Nolasco, Eovaldi, Turner, Alvarez,Koehler and a few other starts given to either re-treads or MLFAs. For Miami’s rotation of kids to rise this far up is amazing; looking at their stellar stats you would think they should have been higher ranked still. Fernandez’s amazing 176 ERA+ should win him the Rookie of the Year. Eovaldi improved, rookie Turner pitched pretty well for a 22 year old. The team dumped its opening day starter Nolasco and kept on … losing frankly, because the offense was so durn bad. Begrudgingly it looks like Jeffry Loria has found himself another slew of great arms to build on.

(pre-season #5) San Francisco: Cain, Lincecum, Bumgarner, Vogelsong, Zito, Gaudin.What the heck happened here? Cain went from an Ace to pitching like a 5th starter, Lincecum continued to completely forget what it was like to pitch like a Cy Young winner, Vogelsong completely fell off his fairy-tale cliff, and Zito completed his $126M journey in typical 5+ ERA fashion. I’m surprised these guys are ranked this high (14th in FIP, 16th in xFIP but just 27th in fWAR thanks to just horrible performances all year). What the heck are they going to do in 2014?

(pre-season #10) Arizona: Corbin, Kennedy, McCarthy, Cahill, Miley and Delgado. Corbin was 2013’s version of Miley; a rookie that came out of nowhere to lead the staff. Miley struggled at times but righted the ship and pitched decently enough. The rest of the staff really struggled. I thought this was a solid bunch but they ended up ranked 23rd in FIP and 14th in xFIP, indicating that they were a bit unlucky as a group.

(pre-season #15) Chicago White Sox: Sale, Peavy, Danks, Quintana, Santiago and Axelrod. Floyd went down early, Peavy was traded. Sale pitched well but had a losing record. The team looked good on paper (16th in ERA) but were 26th in FIP and 17th in xFIP.

(pre-season #14) Oakland: Colon, Anderson, Griffen, Parker, Straily, Milone, with Sonny Gray giving 10 good starts down the stretch. This rotation is the story of one amazing 40-yr old and a bunch of kids who I thought were going to be better. Oakland is bashing their way to success this season and this group has been just good enough to keep them going. I thought the likes of Griffen and Parker would have been better this year, hence their falling from #14 to #19.

(pre-season #19) Chicago Cubs: Garza, Samardzija, Jackson, Wood, and Feldman: Feldman and Garza were flipped once they showed they could be good this year. Samardzija took an uncharacteristic step backwards. Jackson was awful. The Cubs ended up right about where we thought they’d be. However in 2014 they look to be much lower unless some big-armed prospects make the team.

(pre-season #20) Kansas City: Shields, Guthrie, Santana, Davis, Chen, Mendoza: despite trading the best prospect in the game to acquire Shields and Davis, the Royals a) did not make the playoffs and b) really didn’t have that impressive a rotation. 12th in team ERA but 20th in FIP and 25th in xFIP. Compare that to their rankings of 25th in FIP and 26th in xFIP in 2012. But the results on the field are inarguable; the team improved 14 games in the Win column and should be a good bet to make the playoffs next year if they can replace the possibly-departing Santana and the ineffective Davis.

(pre-season #23) Milwaukee: Lohse, Gallardo, Estrada, Peralta, and dozens of starts given to long-men and call-ups. I ranked this squad #23 pre-season before they acquired Lohse; in reality despite his pay and the lost draft pick, Lohse’s addition ended up … having almost no impact on this team in 2013. They finished ranked 23rd on my list, and the team was 74-88.

(pre-season #13): Los Angeles Angels: Weaver, Wilson, Vargas, Hanson, Blanton,Williams: The Angels are in a predicament; their two “aces” Weaver and Wilson both pitched well enough. But nobody in baseball was really that surprised by the god-awful performances from Hanson or Blanton (2-14, 6.04 ERA … and the Angels gave him a two year deal!). So in some ways the team brought this on themselves. You spend half a billion dollars on aging offensive FAs, have the best player in the game languishing in left field because your manager stubbornly thinks that someone else is better in center than one of the best defenders in the game … not fun times in Anaheim. To make matters worse, your bigtime Ace Weaver missed a bunch of starts, looked mortal, and lost velocity.

(#28 pre-season) San Diego: Volquez, Richards, Marquis, Stults, Ross, Cashner: have you ever seen an opening day starter post a 6+ ERA in a cave of a field and get relased before the season was over? That happened to SAn Diego this year. Another case where ERA+ values are deceiving; Stults posted a sub 4.00 ERA but his ERA+ was just 87, thanks to his home ballpark. In fact its almost impossible to tell just how good or bad San Diego pitchers are. I could be talked in to putting them this high or all the way down to about #28 in the rankings.

(pre-season #27) Colorado: Chatwood, De La Rosa, Chacin, Nicaso, Francis and a few starts for Garland and Oswalt for good measure. Another staff who shows how deceptive the ERA+ value can be. Their top guys posted 125 ERA+ figures but as a whole their staff performed badly. 26th in ERA, 19th in FIP, 26th in xFIP. Colorado is like Minnesota; they just don’t have guys who can throw it by you (29th in K/9 just ahead of the Twins), and in their ridiculous hitter’s park, that spells trouble.

(pre-season #4) Toronto: Dickey, Morrow, Johnson, Buehrle, Happ,Rogers, and a line of other guys. What happened here? This was supposed to be one of the best rotations in the majors. Instead they fell on their face, suffered a ton of injuries (only Dickey and Buehrle pitched full seasons: Romero, Drabeck were hurt. Johnson, Happ, Redmond only 14-16 starts each. This team even gave starts to Chien-Ming Wang and Ramon Ortiz. Why not call up Fernando Valenzuela out of retirement? It just goes to show; the best teams on paper sometimes don’t come together. The Nats disappointed in 2013, but probably not as much as the Blue Jays.

(pre-season #18) Baltimore: Hammel, Chen, Tillman, Gonzalez, Feldman, Garcia with a few starts given to Gausman and Britton. I’m not sure why I thought this group would be better than this; they were in the bottom four of the league in ERA, FIP, xFIP and SIERA. It just goes to show how the ERA+ value can be misleading. In their defense, they do pitch in a hitter’s park. Tillman wasn’t bad, Chen took a step back. The big concern here is the health of Dylan Bundy, who I thought could have pitched in the majors starting in June.

(pre-season #30) Houston: Bedard, Norris, Humber, Peacock, Harrell to start, then a parade of youngsters from there. We knew Houston was going to be bad. But amazingly their rotation wasn’t the worst in the league, thanks to Jarred Cosart and Brett Olberholtzer coming up and pitching lights-out for 10 starts a piece later in the year. There’s some potential talent here.

(pre-season #24) Minnesota: Diamond, Pelfrey, Correia, Denudo, Worley and a whole slew of guys who were equally as bad. Minnesota had the worst rotation in the league, and it wasn’t close. They were dead last in rotational ERA, FIP, and xFIP, and it wasn’t close. They were last in K/9 … by more than a strikeout per game. They got a total fWAR of 4.6 from every pitcher who started a game for them this year. Matt Harvey had a 6.1 fWAR in just 26 starts before he got hurt. Someone needs to call the Twins GM and tell him that its not the year 1920, that power-pitching is the wave of the future, that you need swing-and-miss guys to win games in this league.

Biggest Surprises: Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Miami and New York Mets to a certain extent.

Biggest Disappointments: Toronto, the Angels, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Baltimore to some extent.

Disagree with these rankings? Feel free to pipe up. I’ll use this ranking list as the spring board post-FA market for 2014’s pre-season rankings.

Now that the playoff fields are set … who has the most formidable playoff rotation?

Unlike previous rotation rankings posts, the playoffs focus mostly on the 1-2-3 guys. Your 5th starter may not even be on the playoff roster and your 4th starter usually just throws one start in a series where you can line up your guys, and some teams skip the 4th starter altogether if they at least one veteran pitcher who can all go on 3 days rest (there’s enough off-days in the 2-3-2 format to allow most guys to go on regular rest). So the focus here is on the strength of your top guys.

Here’s how I’d rank the 10 playoff teams’ rotations, despite the fact that two of these teams will be wild card losers and never get a chance to use their rotations:

Los Angeles: Kershaw, Greinke, Nolasco, Ryu (Capuano left out). As great a 1-2 combination Kershaw and Greinke are, Nolasco has for stretches outpiched them both since his trade, and Ryu is a #2 starter talent in the #4 slot. They’re going to be a tough out in any short series where Kershaw gets two starts. Easily the #1 playoff rotation.

Detroit: Scherzer, Verlander, Sanchez, Fister (Porcello left out). Hard to believe that a guy who most thought was the best or 2nd best pitcher in baseball (Verlander) may not even get the start in the first game of the playoffs. But they’re still the 2nd best rotation.

St. Louis: Wainwright, Miller, Wacha, Kelly (Westbrook and Garcia hurt, Lynn left out). The knock on St Louis’ current rotation is their youth; two rookies and a 2nd year guy who was in the bullpen all last year. Are there any innings-limit concerns here that could force a shutdown It doesn’t seem so at this point? It continues to amaze me how well St. Louis develops players. Carpenter and Garcia out all year? No worries we’ll just bring up two guys in Wacha and Miller who are barely old enough to drink but who can pitch to a 120 ERA+.

Tampa Bay: Price, Moore, Archer, Cobb (Hellickson left out); A tough top 4, if a little young on the back-side. Moore has quietly returned to this dominant form upon his call-up and gives Tampa a formidable 1-2 punch. Price has already pushed them past game 163.

Pittsburgh: Liriano, Burnett, Cole, Morton (Rodriguez hurt, Locke left out). The team previously said that Cole would likely a reliever in the playoffs, but I’ll believe that when I see it; he’s been fantastic down the stretch. It is difficult to put a rotation headlined by the burnout Burnett and the reclamation project Liriano this high, but their performances this year are inarguable.

Boston: Lester, Buchholz, Peavy, Lackey (Dempster, Doubront left out). Buchholz just returning mid September after a hot start; could push this rank up. I don’t necessarily trust the #3 and #4 spots here in a short series, but Boston can (and probably will) bash their way to the World Series.

Cincinnati: Bailey, Cueto, Arroyo, Cingrani (Leake left out, Latos hurt). Cingrani may be hurt, Cueto has returned to replace the sore-armed Latos. Leake’s performance may push him over Arroyo if they get there, but the odds of them beating Pittsburgh were already slim after their poor finish and were vanquished last night. Still, isn’t it nice when you have more quality starters than you need heading into a season, Mike Rizzo?

Atlanta: Minor, Medlen, Teheran, Wood (Hudson hurt, Maholm left out). If Wood is shutdown, Maholm makes sense as the #4 starter but has struggled most of the 2nd half and finished poorly. I may have this rotation ranked too low; they’re solid up and down, just not overpoweringly flashy.

Cleveland: Jimenez, Kluber, Kazmir, Salazar (Masterson in the pen, McAllister left out). How did these guys get a playoff spot? Amazing. They’re all solid, nobody especially flashy, and they won’t go away.

Oakland: Colon, Parker, Griffen, Gray (Milone, Straily left out, Anderson in long relief). I didn’t want to rank them last, considering Oakland’s record over their last 162 game stretch. But here they are; on an individual level one by one, they just do not stack up. The age-less wonder Colon is easily the staff Ace. The rest of these guys’ seasonal numbers are just not impressive.

These teams obviously didn’t make the playoffs, but were in the hunt until late, and since I had already typed up this content might as well say where I’d have ranked them, had they made the playoffs…

Washington: Strasburg, Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Haren (Ohlendorf, Roark left out, Jordan shut down) Perhaps you’d replace Haren with Roark based on September performances; I just can’t imagine trusting Haren in a 7 game series.. I’d put them about #4, just ahead or just behind Tampa. Gonzalez and Zimmermann have shown themselves to be oddly vulnerable here and there coming down the stretch, and I just don’t put Strasburg in the same elite category as Kershaw right now. Too bad months of indifference cost them the 4 games they needed to make up in the standings to reach the WC game.

Kansas City: Shields, Santana, Chen, Guthrie (Duffy, Davis, Mendoza left out): Duffy may be a better choice than Guthrie based on small sample sizes. I’d have put them just behind Cincy at #8 in terms of rotation depth.

Texas: Darvish, Garza, Holland, Perez (Tepisch, Grimm left out, Harrison hurt): Great Ace in Darvish (even if he has occasaional blowups), but falls off badly after that. The Garza acquisition has just not worked out, and the rest of the rotation is good but not overpowering. I’d put them behind KC but just ahead of Baltimore.

New York: Sabathia, Kuroda, Nova, Pettitte (Hughes, Phelps left out): Kuroda has been the ace of the staff this year, but you’d always lead off with Sabathia (though, had they made the playoffs it would be unknown if Sabathia could even go with his late-season injury). Either way, this would be behind any other playoff team’s rotation.

Continuing a monthly series of look-backs at our starters (here’s Apr 2013 post), here’s a monthly glance at how our .500 team is doing from a Starting Pitching standpoint. As with last month, we’ll have “Grades” per outing, the team’s performance per opposing starter sliced and diced a few ways, and other per-starter stuff that I like to track.

Strasburg has stepped up his game after his well-documented 4-unearned run meltdown and has dominated his last three starts before straining his Lat on 5/31 (hence the “incomplete” grade). Gonzalez remains up-and-down, as he was in April/ He’ll be excellent and then less than mediocre start to start. Zimmermann‘s 6 run 7th in Baltimore is the only blip on an otherwise fantastic month which has put him into Cy Young contendor status. Haren‘s up and down starts finished off with a heroic effort in Baltimore on 5/30/13, pitching into the 8th and giving up just two runs to one of the more potent offenses in the league. Detwiler‘s month was cut-short by his injury and subsequent D/L trip. Lastly the Nats one known glaring weakness heading into this season (Starting pitching depth) has been exposed with the two spot starts we’ve gotten from Duke and Karns. I know Karns’ grade isn’t that fair considering the circumstances (MLB debut, hot night, tough hitting team), but his stat-line is what it is.

May Performance By Opponent Starting Pitcher Rotation Order Number

A look at the opposing team’s rotation ranked 1-5 in the order they’re appearing from opening day.

Starter #

Record

Opposing Starter in Wins

Opposing Starter in Losses

1

3-4

Samardzija, Volquez, Hamels

Burnett, Kershaw, Cain, Hammel

2

4-2

Maholm, Rodriguez, Sanchez, Bumgarner

Jackson, Greinke

3

2-3

Medlen, Fister

Feldman, Stults, Tillman

4

1-0

Kendrick

5

3-1

Locke, Beckett,Teheran

Vogelsong

5+

2-3

Smith, Gausman

Cashner, Pettibone, Garcia

Thoughts; as always, not all opposing team #1 starters are the same. But, the Nats actually fared pretty durn well against opposing #1 and #2 guys in May. Where they struggled were against the #3 starters in May; you cannot lose to the likes of Scott Feldman, Eric Stults and Chris Tillman. They also struggled with what I call “5+” starters; guys who were call-ups to replace opening day starters. Sometimes a 5+ is a rising ace prospect (theoretically a Kevin Gausman or perhaps a Matt Harvey in the end of 2012) and sometimes they’re a 4-A guy (Jonathan Pettibone). But usually you expect a winning record there.

A ranking of opposing teams’ rotations by pure performance at the time of the series, using ERA+ heavily.

Starter #

Record

Opposing Starter in Wins

Opposing Starter in Losses

1

1-3

Bumgarner

Burnett, Kershaw, Cashner

2

6-2

Samardzija, Sanchez, Medlen, Fister, Kendrick, Locke

Greinke, Tillman

3

3-2

Maholm, Rodriguez, Beckett

Feldman, Pettibone

4

1-3

Teheran

Cain, Stults, Garcia

5

2-3

Volquez, Hamels

Hammel, Jackson, Vogelsong

5+

2-0

Smith, Gausman

On the bright side; going 6-2 against the opposing team’s 2nd best starter isn’t bad.

May Performance By Opponent Starting Pitcher League-wide “Rank”

A team-independent assignment of a league-wide “rank” of what the starter is. Is he an “Ace?” Is he a #2?

Starter #

Record

Opposing Starter in Wins

Opposing Starter in Losses

1

1-3

Hamels

Kershaw, Greinke, Cain

2

4-0

Bumgarner, Samardzija, Sanchez, Medlen

3

3-2

Fister, Maholm, Volquez

Burnett, Tillman

4

3-3

Kendrick, Rodriguez, Beckett

Cashner, Hammel, Jackson

5

4-5

Locke, Smith, Gausman, Teheran

Feldman, Pettibone, Stults, Garcia, Vogelsong

I like this table the best; It usually shows where a team really is over- or under-performing. There’s no shame in going 1-3 against the league’s best hurlers. And its fantastic to see the team going 4-0 against that collection of league-wide #2s. It is downright awful to see the team go 4-5 against this collection of #5 starters.

May Records by Pitching Advantage

Start-by-start advantages in my own opinion and then looking at the results.

In other words, the team when 9-5 when I thought Washington had the pitching advantage, 2-4 when I thought the pitching matchup was even, and 4-4 when I thought the opposing team had the advantage. This is about what I expected, perhaps wanting to see a slightly better record in our advantage’d starts. The Strasburg-Edwin Jackson loss hurt, as did the Zimmermann-Stultsloss.

May matchup analysis

Looking at the opposing starter rank that our guys are going up against to see how their competition fares.

Nats Starters Opponents

matchup analysis

Nats Record under starter

Strasburg

Three #1s, One #2, Two #5s

4-2

Gonzalez

One #1, Two #2s, a #3 and a #5+

3-2

Zimmermann

Two #2s, Two #3s, a #4 and a #5

4-2

Haren

One #1, Two #3s, and Three #5+

2-4

Detwiler

Two #1s, One #2.

1-2

Duke

One #5

0-1

Karns

One #5+

1-0

total record

15-13

Detwiler’s turn now basically matches up with the opposing teams’ best guys, while Haren is getting more and more #5 and #5+ guys but continues to struggle.